[PS2,XB]戰爭遊戲新作Brothers in Arms圖片

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Brothers in Arms
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Gearbox Software
Genre: First-Person Shooter
Origin: U.S.
Number of Players: 1-8
Release Date: Winter 2004
ESRB Rating: RP


Brothers in Arms Preview
Take notice, this is not "just another" WWII game.
http://ps2.ign.com/articles/507/507298p1.html

April 16, 2004 - There have been quite a number of good World War II games in the past few years, including Battlefield 1942, the Medal of Honor series, and Call of Duty. The large majority of WWII games focus on creating an immersive experience with visuals and sound that bring war to life, but that are more about action and reaction than faithfully re-creating true combat AI. There's nothing wrong with that, nothing at all, but developer Gearbox decided some 3 1/2 years ago that a more accurate retelling of the war experience was the way to go.

After years of research, which involved sifting through over 100 crates in the National Historical Archive, interviewing veterans, studying air reconnaissance photos, and visiting Normandy, France, Brothers in Arms was ready for show. Set to ship this October for Xbox and PC and sometime later for PS2, Brothers in Arms is not just another World War II first-person shooter, but offers some nice improvements over what we've seen before.
Like HBO's Band of Brothers mini-series, Brothers in Arms depicts the real-life account of American paratroopers liberating France. While Band of Brothers focused on the 506, Brothers in Arms takes us through eight days in the life of the 3rd squad, 3rd platoon of the 502 as they work to secure the American invasion of Normandy. You play as Sgt. Baker, the reluctant military man trying to resolve some deep-seeded issues with his father.

Having missed their drop point, Baker and his men have been scattered from the original objective on D-Day. You begin alone as you make your way through the 21 single-player missions, but soon begin re-acquiring your men. Though the action is immediate, the process of slowly gaining men allows players a chance to learn some squad-combat tactics before all 12 men fall under your command.





The Crack of Dawn
Gearbox demoed one level for us, "Crack of Dawn," that takes place roughly halfway through the game. The story, told through cut-scenes and in-game chatter, which precedes most missions, is expected to invest players in the lives of the men under Baker's charge, so much so that, when the game is over, gamers will know each soldier's name and care for his well-being. Crack of Dawn displays this perfectly, as Baker moves from man to man. As Baker nears, the men may already be in conversations, but will break them to acknowledge and engage the sergeant. There's no need to hit X that we could see, instead these conversations happen naturally and characters continue to talk to each other when Baker walks away.

As Baker, you can hold any two weapons (military issued or German) as well as a helping of grenades. The primary and secondary weapons can easily be toggled with the press of a button and, in fact, ease of use seems to have been a major focus in development. The HUD is minimal, with a compass in the bottom left of the screen the only thing to distract from the view of the French countryside. The compass points towards your next objective and has the outline of a soldier, showing when you are crouched, standing, and also your injury level. More important are the two icons on the edge of the compass, as they represent the two units under your command.

Though Baker has a dozen men at his command through various parts of the game, you only have control of six maximum for each mission. These six are broken into two groups of three, the Suppression Element and the Movement or Assault Element. Two icons display the general location of each unit relative to Baker. You can switch control of units, again, with just the press of a button. Toggle to select one of your two units and a blue icon appears ahead of you on the ground. Move the icon by adjusting your aim. Hit the Action button when the icon is on a spot on the ground and the unit will move to that spot. Point at an enemy and hit action and they'll fire on that enemy. Point at a mounted machinegun and the unit will move and use that machinegun.

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It looks incredibly simple to use, but it's not just about micromanaging troop movements. Just because you tell your Movement Element to cross a street and take position against a barn, doesn't mean they walk in a straight line like zombies in fatigues. Each member of the unit is smart in making it across the street, and will crouch and even lay suppressive fire for others if fired upon. The AI in the 15-minute demo looked very sophisticated and about as realistic as we've seen in a WWII shooter. There's no other way to say it -- it just looks right.

Control of both Suppression and Movement Elements is identical and you can use them as you see fit, but your Movement Element has lighter weapons and lots of grenades and are meant for more direct combat. The environments are relatively wide-open, with no apparent "corridor combat" that confines you to a particular street or path. As such, there's a significant amount of on-the-fly strategy to employ in combat situations. Your Suppression Unit should generally be used to draw out and occupy enemies while the Movement Unit attempts to flank the opposition.
This doesn't always work, because enemies have the same AI as your own units and will try and flank you or even set up an ambush, as we saw in the demo. Though the situational enemy AI was toned down for purposes of the demo, our men were still flanked thanks to some careless play. With the true AI in place when the game finally ships this fall, it will hopefully create a very fluid experience where enemies react appropriately to the Allied movement.

Suppressive fire is so important to the overall gameplay mechanics that it has its own icon. When an enemy is sighted (that means you or someone under your command sees them), a circular icon appears. If there's no suppression, the icon is fully red, meaning the enemy has no compunction to stay hidden. But lay some fire down and the meter begins to fill white until they are fully pinned down. As far as fire is concerned, the units automatically use correct military tactics with alternating fire. It's about as real a wartime experience as you'd want, unless, that is, you want to experience war first-hand.





To help players who want to fully strategize a conflict, you can pause the game at any time to bring up a pulled back, 3D perspective of the area with your units and sighted enemies marked on the map. You can then decide your course of action before un-pausing the game (but can't direct any units while paused). Though this cuts into the immediate action, it doesn't appear as cumbersome (and certainly not as technical) as the pre-mission planning required in some Rainbow Six titles.

Though we didn't get to put our hands on the controller during the demo, Brothers in Arms seems to have controls very similar to other first-person shooters, with the ability to look through weapon scopes with the click of a button (this offers a nice far-sighted visual effect or blurring things nearby and offering a clear view of the scene in the distance), the ability to crouch, and to hop into a machinegun nest and lay waste to enemies. There will also be tanks in the game, including a final Panzer battle similar to the climactic scene in Saving Private Ryan, and you'll be able to command (but not drive) tanks in certain scenes. Tank commands function just like troops, so it will still be nice and easy, but you can also hop onto tanks and man mounted guns. Hey, all the stuff shown in the demo was cool, but a WWII game would all be for naught without some tanks.

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Sight and Sound of Thunder
We were only shown the Xbox version of Brothers in Arms, but if the PC and PS2 versions come anywhere close visually, few gamers will have anything to complain about. The French countryside almost looks like a painting. It's very colorful, vibrant, and living. Individual blades of grass sway in the breeze and grass and dirt are kicked up by machinegun fire. That's a nice touch and since locations were re-created to look identical to 1944, everything's accurate as well.

The explosions offer some great smoke and dirt particles and bodies have ragdoll physics, so they fly through the air and you can even lay shots into the dead and watch them jerk from the force of the bullets. There was some pop-in with some of the trees and a little bit of slowdown during one of the battle scenes, but Brothers in Arms is many months away, so these things may be fixed before it ships.
Though sound is still a bit early and a lot of dialogue isn't active, there's still a good deal of random chatter, a lot of it in the pre-mission moments, that help to bring the era to life. Though our office wasn't quite rattling from the combat, we do expect that when we next see Brothers in Arms at E3, the sound will be in full effect. It wouldn't make sense for Gearbox to go to such great lengths for authenticity and leave sound behind, so look for an experience similar to Call of Duty with the full raucous noise of war bouncing from your speakers.

Multiplayer
As if the single-player weren't enough to leave you salivating, Gearbox gave us some hints of what to expect from the multiplayer. Featuring an objective-based game mode, up to four players, each in charge of three AI players, will be able to play online on Xbox or PC. Any variation of System Link, Live, and Split-Screen will be possible, so two players can be split-screen on one Xbox and play against two other players on separate machines over Xbox Live. Gearbox is looking into allowing more than four-players online with the PC version, but it's yet to be determined. The multiplayer functionality of the PS2 version is undecided.

There are only two sides in any of the multiplayer conflicts, Nazis and Americans and players will need to choose one or the other with objectives essentially being "one side wants to do this and the other side wants to stop them" with a time-limit lending added pressure to the battle. There are 12 planned multiplayer missions, each one based on a real-life happening in World War II with other paratroopers outside the 502, including the 506 attacking Utah Beach. And yes, there will be tanks in some of the multiplayer missions.

As for downloadable content, there are three extra single-player missions that will likely be released on Xbox Live and for download on PCs, though the Xbox Live downloads may end up being premium (AKA pay ) content. Other downloadable content is to be determined.

Outlook
When Brothers in Arms was announced a few days back, the generally reaction in the IGN office was "whoop-dee-doo, another World War II shooter," but after seeing the game in action, it looks like it could well be that next level of WWII shooter we've all been waiting for. Whether Brothers in Arms can reach that plateau remains to be seen, but we're definitely looking forward to playing the game and seeing if it lives up to the promise.

-- Hilary Goldstein

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